Modern Romance Collection: July 2017 Books 1 - 4. Sharon Kendrick
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‘Oh, dear. Is your ego feeling battered?’
‘I wouldn’t go quite that far,’ he said drily.
‘So now you’ve seen how I am.’
‘Yes. And I don’t like what I see. What’s the matter, Keeley?’ His frowning blue gaze stayed fixed on her face. ‘You look sick.’
Keeley swallowed. So here it was. He’d given her the perfect opportunity to tell him her life-changing news. She was surprised he hadn’t worked it out for himself and if he’d bothered to look harder at her baggy shirt, he might have noticed the faint curve of her belly beneath. She opened her mouth to tell him but something made her hesitate. Was it self-preservation? The sense that once she told him nothing was ever going to be the same?
‘I have been sick,’ she admitted, before the words came out in a bald rush. ‘Actually, I’m pregnant.’
He didn’t catch on, not straight away—or if he did, he didn’t show it.
‘Congratulations,’ he said evenly. ‘Who’s the father?’
It was a reaction she should have anticipated but stupidly she hadn’t and Keeley felt hurt. She wanted to tell him that only one man could possibly be the father but he probably wouldn’t believe her and why should he? She hadn’t exactly acted with any restraint where he was concerned, had she? She’d fallen into his arms—not once, but twice and made it clear she’d wanted sex with him. Why wouldn’t a chauvinist like Ariston Kavakos imagine she behaved like that all the time? She licked her lips.
‘You are,’ she said baldly. ‘You’re the father.’
His face showed no reaction other than a sudden coldness which turned his eyes into sapphire ice. ‘Excuse me?’
Was he expecting his cool question to prompt her into admitting that she’d made a mistake, and he wasn’t going to be a daddy after all? That she was trying it on because he was so wealthy? The temptation to do just that and make him go away was powerful, but her conscience was more powerful still. Because he was the father—there was no getting away from that and the important thing was how she dealt with it. Suddenly, Keeley knew that, despite her morning sickness and ever-present sensation of feeling like a cloth which had been wrung out to dry, she now needed to be strong. Because Ariston was strong. And he was a dominant male who would ride roughshod over her to get what it was he wanted, if she let him.
‘You heard me,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re the father.’
His face darkened as he studied her and suddenly she got an idea of just how formidable an opponent he might be in the boardroom.
‘How do you know it’s mine?’
She flinched. ‘Because you’re the only one it could be.’
‘I only have your word for that, Keeley. You were no virgin.’
‘Neither were you.’
He gave a cruel smile. ‘Like I told you—it’s different for men.’
‘You think I would lie about something like this?’
‘I don’t know—that’s the thing. I know very little about you. But I’m a wealthy man. There are undoubted benefits to getting pregnant by someone like me. So was it an accident, or did you plan it?’
‘Plan it? You think I deliberately got myself pregnant, just to get my hands on your money?’
‘Don’t look so outraged, Keeley. You wouldn’t believe the things people would do for money,’ he said, his gaze flicking over her coldly. ‘Or maybe you would.’
‘You seem to be very good at dishing out blame, but I’m not going to carry the entire burden.’ She sucked in a deep breath as she walked over to the window sill. ‘I always thought contraception was the joint responsibility of both parties.’
Ariston met her shadowed eyes and was surprised by a sudden wave of compassion—and guilt. How many times had he made love to her that night? His brow furrowed. Just twice, before she’d kicked him out of her bed and announced that she was leaving the island. Had he been careful that second time, or had he...? His heart missed a beat. No. He hadn’t. He’d been so aroused that in his sleepy and already sated state he had slipped inside her without bothering to put on a condom. How the hell had that happened, when he was traditionally always the most exacting of men?
And hadn’t it felt beyond blissful to feel her bare skin against his? Her slick wet heat against his hardness. Had some protective instinct made his mind shut down so that only just now was he remembering it?
His heart was thundering as he watched her, noting the way she had slumped against the window sill. When she leaned back like that he could see the curve of her belly and for the first time noticed that her already generous breasts were even bigger than usual. She was undeniably pregnant—so should he simply take her word that he was the father?
But memories of his mother—and many of the women in between—made him wary. He knew all about lies and subterfuge because they’d been woven into the fabric of his life. He knew what people would do for money. He had learnt caution at an early age because he’d needed to. It had protected him from some of the darker things which life had thrown at him and Pavlos, so why shouldn’t he seek its protection now?
‘You’re right, of course. Contraception is the responsibility of the man and the woman,’ he said. ‘But that still doesn’t answer my question with any degree of satisfaction. How do I know—or you know—that I’m the father of your baby?’
‘Because...’
He saw her bite her lip as if she was trying to hold the words back but then they came tumbling out in a passionate torrent.
‘Because I’ve only ever had sex once before!’ she declared. ‘One man, one time, years ago—and it was a disaster, okay? Does that tell you everything you need to know, Ariston?’
He felt a dark and primitive rush of pleasure. It all added up now. Her soft sense of wonder when he’d made love to her. Her disbelieving cries as she had come. These all spoke of a woman achieving satisfaction for the first time, not someone who’d been around the sexual block a few times. But what if she was lying? What if she was simply using the skills of an actress, learnt at the knee of her mother? His mouth hardened. Surely he owed it to himself to demand a DNA test—if not now, then at least when the child was born.
But her waxy complexion and tired eyes were making him stall and he was surprised by another wave of compassion. He forced himself to sift through the available facts and the possible solutions. Despite her lack of qualifications, she wasn’t stupid. She must realise that he’d come at her with all guns blazing if he discovered he’d been bamboozled by a false paternity claim.
He glanced around the shabby little room, trying to impose some order on his whirling thoughts. Fatherhood had never been on his agenda. He accepted that he was a difficult man who didn’t believe in love, who didn’t trust women and who fiercely guarded his personal space—and those factors had ruled out the forced intimacy of marriage. The desire to carry on his own bloodline had always been noticeable by its absence and he’d always supposed that Pavlos would be the one to provide the necessary heirs to take the Kavakos empire forward.
But this disclosure altered everything. In a few short minutes he could feel something changing inside him, because if this was his child then he wanted a part of it. A big part of it. His heart clenched. For how could it be any other way? Why would he not want to stake a claim on his own flesh and blood? He looked into Keeley’s wary eyes and thought this must be the last thing she wanted—an unplanned baby with a man she loathed. And no money, he reminded himself grimly. Her circumstances were more impecunious than most. So why not offer her the kind of inducement which would suit them both?
‘So when were you going to tell me?’ he demanded. ‘Or weren’t you going to bother?’
‘Of